


It's Only Thing We Know

by nevereverever



Series: changed forever [5]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Blood and Injury, Blumentrio-centric, Caleb's Breakdown, Child Abuse, Episode: c2e128 Cat and Mouse, F/M, Fire, Flashbacks, Hurt No Comfort, I'm just trying to be careful, It's not as bad as the tags make it seem, Medical Experimentation, Multi, They are very clear on the consequences of their action being death or torture, death pacts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-16 04:14:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29944317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nevereverever/pseuds/nevereverever
Summary: Astrid and Eadwulf find a place to hide in the minutes that they give Bren to flee. The world has not been kind to them, and they can't help but remember that as it comes crashing down around them.
Relationships: Astrid & Eodwulf (Critical Role), Astrid/Eodwulf (Critical Role), Astrid/Eodwulf/Bren Aldric Ermendrud
Series: changed forever [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1926925
Comments: 7
Kudos: 31





	It's Only Thing We Know

**Author's Note:**

> If you told me 2 months ago that I would have enough canon Blumentrio content to be writing an installment of this series every week, I would have said "Oh no" and I would have been right.
> 
> Those tags are pretty brutal, huh? Be careful as you proceed.

Nicodranas is a beautiful city. It just is. Beaches of sparkling white sand, cobblestone streets lined with colorful shops and vibrant foliage, and architecture so eclectic it feels as if every step one takes might be into another little world. They do not have time to take it in. They know landmarks and rendezvous points marked out on a map. Lavish Chateau, Mother's Lighthouse, Tidepeak Tower.

They leave the dining room of the Chateau with their disguises still on and their hoods pulled up, coasting through the shadows until Eadwulf spots a small alleyway that he pulls them into.

“We need to go after them and we have to message home. We’ve bought them what, 3 minutes?” she says, pulling back her cloak and wiping the sweat from her brow.

“I’d bet, which means we’ve bought ourselves 60 seconds?” She nods sharply. Her gaze flits around wildly, looking for anyone watching them, anyone who could have seen them commit treason in a barroom. She sees nothing and she isn't sure that she's relieved. She huffs out a sigh anyway.

“Yeah," she replies, nausea pooling in the pit of her stomach. "You do realize what we’ve done, right?” He scoffs-

_"You do realize what you’ve done?” Astrid said, sitting down on the bathroom floor next to Eadwulf, holding the canteen she had gone to fetch. Eadwulf was curled into himself, his forehead resting on his knees and legs pulled tightly to his chest. She took one of his hands and curled his fingers around the leather of the flask._

_“I know,” Eadwulf replies, his tone flat. He didn’t drink, he barely even moved. Bren rubbed at the tight muscles of his shoulder._

_“It will be worse now. He’ll make you try again and it will be worse next time," Astrid said, sitting across from her boys in the cramped space of the bathroom stall. She leaned forward to rest her cheek against his shins. Bren’s fingers caught a particularly bad knot in his neck and he whimpered as the pain made his stomach turn._

_"I know," he said again, more emphatic._

_"And when we-" she stopped when Eadwulf’s head flew up from his knees and they could both see the tears that were running down his face. She and Bren both took a sharp breath in._

_"I get it, alright?” he said, his voice cracking like old glass, embedding shards into all three of them, “I fucked this one up, I know I did. Would you both please just go?" His face screwed up and he leaned over the toilet and retched. Bren and Astrid looked at each other, at a loss for words as their friend, their partner, their strength, tried to cleanse himself from the inside._

_"No, we won’t,” Bren said after a pause, running his hand slowly up and down Wulf’s spine._

_“Why?” he asked, resting his face on the rim of the bowl, tears streaming from his eyes, “I failed, I wasn’t strong enough to face it. Not strong enough for the Empire. For you.”_

_“Hey, none of that,” Astrid said, tapping his chin to guide his gaze up into her eyes, “none of that. We’re worried, Arschloch, we’re not mad. Just follow orders next time, ja?”_

“You think I would have agreed to come with you if I didn’t know what the consequences for this shit would be, Sassa?” He spits out the nickname as if it's the final word of a curse, a spell that will tear them both to shreds. His anger is almost soothing for a moment, but it fades quickly into a horrible, piercing softness, a sliver of the boy who once walked a mile in the rain to bring her his mama's soup when she was sick.

“It was a rhetorical question,” she bites back. She rubs her eyes with the heel of her hand.

“We do not have time for rhetoric,” he says. She shakes her head and her hair falls into her eyes. It’s getting long, she needs to cut it, but she doesn’t think she’ll be alive to do it.

“No, we don’t. I love you," she forces out. It hurts to say it but he has to know. He has to. He reaches out and cups the back of her neck, draws her in close, and presses a lingering kiss to her forehead. His lips are chapped.

“I will always love you," he whispers. She smiles. "This next part is going to hurt." 

“He’s already angry with Bren," she says, pulling away from him and squaring her shoulders, "He’s going to make it hurt.”

_The experiments were not the same every time. There were little things that changed from week to week, night to night. They noticed, they couldn't help but notice, when the incisions changed angles to slice through tendons and nerves, when the cuts were slightly deeper, or their bonds a little tighter._

_They were observant above all things, they were trained to be, so they also noticed that when their master has a certain set to his jaw after a meeting or when they fucked up some stupid thing in training, that the scalpel became less precise in its butchery. That on those days two of them would spend the night holding the other's wrists and begging them not to claw at their wounds. Please ~~Sassa~~ ~~Bren~~ ~~Wulfie~~ love, it will only make it worse._

_They knew, of course they knew, that his anger was cut into their skin as clearly as it beat bruises into it. And they became ever more careful not to invoke his ire or else they would see it written in their arms the next night._

_And wasn't that just the point?_

“We deserve it," he says with a conviction taught to them in lashes, "are you going to Send or should I?” she shakes her head.

“You do it, he already thinks I'm compromised, he's more likely to believe it coming from you,” she replies. She hates herself for it, hates being anything but the favorite. She sees him trace the somatic components in the air and whisper a message under his breath. The spell ends and he slumps back against the wall of the alleyway.

"He only needs to believe it for 15 more minutes, Bren will have to do the rest." He rubs at his tattoos with his thumb.

"Caleb will do just fine," she sighs, trying with everything she has to believe it. Her stupid boy can be faster than her, just this once.

“Look at us, on a suicide mission for a man we don’t know anymore,” he laughs. His smile looks fragile. She takes his hand in hers and squeezes it so tight that it hurts. It’s the only comfort that she knows how to provide and it grounds them both in this one awful moment with each other.

“We promised that we would die for each other, remember?” A sunny wooden bench, hands in her hair, Bren smiling down at her. She wonders if Caleb remembers his promise, if he knows just as well as they do what they are willing to lose today.

“I remember every time I see your scars that you fucking tried.” He places a hand on the side of her neck and it takes everything in her to not pull away. She owes him this.

_The last kind thing she tried to do for him was to pull him out of the fire. Her stupid boy was crying, screaming, feral as he clawed at the cart and the dirt and the flames. The crackling fire and crumbling walls and the screams tried to drown it out, but she heard him calling for them. She knew that he would find his way into the fire and that he would not be reborn in the ashes._

_So she grabbed him with all her strength and held on and he thrashed and fought. She didn't try to put out his burning clothing or take him away from the fire, she just pinned him and held him there. His hands caught fire and she felt her skin start to sizzle. But she did not let go._

_"Snap out of it, Brennie," she called, anything to be louder than the sound of his parents burning, “they’re traitors, you did what you had to do.” He didn’t respond, just screamed an awful, heart-wrenching scream._

_She bit down a cry as she felt her neck and shoulder crackle and burn._

_‘It will burn you’ he once told her, holding a tiny flame in the palm of his hand. It did, it hurt like nothing she had ever felt, and she knew pain. The three of them had learned pain like they had learned magic and espionage and patriotism and fear, but this?_

_“You’re hurting me,” she cried, desperately trying to drag him out of whatever madness had gripped him. It couldn’t have been more than a few seconds before she heard Wulf cry out an incantation and Bren fell limp in her arms. A beam in the flaming house in front of them cracked and the roof fell in on itself. The screaming stopped and her world split in two._

“Yeah. I did.” There is a beat of silence that feels more like an ending than anything else. Nicodranas bustles around them and yet they are so very alone. Eadwulf pulls out of the half-embrace they have fallen into and pulls his hood back over his head. 

“We need to start running,” he says, all traces of softness disappearing in an instant, “You have anything else left to tell me?” He turns his holy symbol in his hand and casts a Shield of Faith over her.

“Race you?” she jokes with half a smile. She Disguises Self, the somatic component so familiar that she hardly has to think. He scoffs.

"Never say that to me again."

"I doubt I'll get the chance. Let's go."

**Author's Note:**

> You'll notice that I didn't write about what might be happening to them after the end of last week's episode because I don't even want to think about it. I hope that they're okay. 
> 
> Leave me a note if this hurt you in your soul, as that was my intention.


End file.
